Want to buy some yarn?

I'm destashing some yarn in hopes of acquiring funds to buy rhinestones for my skating dresses.

This is Wollmeise and they are:
63 grams of WD Neptun (80/20) (deeper in color than picture shows, at least on this monitor…)
61 grams of WD Schwammerl (100%)
and 65 grams of WD Bromberee (100%)

(WD means "we're different" it's a grab bag colorway that might be slightly different from the color with that name. It is not a "second"- but a first run, excellent condition yarn. 100% is all merino, 80/20 is merino/nylon.)

Since these have been used (but NOT used for knitting - just the rest of the skein was used) they have been exposed to the dog hair in my house, but they don't look bad (certainly not rolled in hair!) and it would just be a matter of picking off a few pieces. But warning in case you have allergies.

For reference, I can do a simple pair of socks for my size 5 feet with 60 grams, but only something quite simple. However, each mini-skein is more than enough for a pair of women's anklets, but would also be good for sampling projects or use in multiple color projects.

The price is $33 including paypal fees and first class shipping.

This yarn sells at The Loopy Ewe for $30 a skein, and skeins are approximately 150 grams. (This lot is 189 grams!)

Trust me, it's a good deal! I hate parting with such pretty pretty yarn- but I need some sparkles for my upcoming competition!

Blanket Update

A reader asked how my blanket was progressing, so I thought I'd show a picture. It's definetly getting there. You'll notice I also started adding a black edging to the bottom and sides to make it have a flat edge. Except the corners will be truncated, because it's just too difficult to figure out how to fix that :)

I'm really happy with the progress, and I think I have enough yarn to either complete it, or at least be very close. (I have 100 balls in my bag right now- that's enough for about 200 squares, then I have a swap of 40 coming- so that's 80 more squares, plus the leftovers of all the balls already here- so enough to make the blanket twice as big as it already is...) As such, I'm sad that I am no longer going to participate in swaps. That was probably the best part- getting so many gorgeous yarn colors, without having to buy each and every one of them!


And except for the Dye-it-Yourself swap I have outstanding, here is my last- and probably favorite swap. StimpyLab. I just love it. Here is her etsy shop link (she also makes cute stitch markers). She uses one of my favorite bases (one I have a bunch of to dye), and her color sense is great. Plus she uses a neat speckled technique, so it's really unique.


Oh, and I guess there is ONE other swap. I hit a Wollmeise update last Friday (um...ooops?) so I have 4 skeins of that coming and joined a swap for it. But it probably won't go into my blanket, but to a special wollmeise only throw pillow.

A FULL day

I present to you the DNA scarf! It's 3 feet now, so I'm getting there. (I have plenty of time! It's not even summer yet, much less winter!) This will be Kevin's graduation present, as hopefully he will be getting a job at a DNA company.

I'm really enjoying this pattern, but man do I keep messing it up! Just really stupid mistakes since i'm not really paying attention to the pattern. The picture is courtesy of Kevin. He got a new camera: a Canon Rebel T1i. (He also got an awesome lens for it.) So I'm having him take all my pictures now.

So what else happened today? Well, I went to an ice skating competition at the mall. It was a very small competition- just 2 hours, but I wanted to be around to congratulate all the kids I skate with. While I was there I knitted on my sock yarn blanket. My first swap came back- I have 38 new colors to knit with (there was 1 repeat, and I got one fewer skein then I sent-40. No big deal, though I'm a little annoyed with the "swap Mom" because she had put my name in the thread as an unidentified package, and when I PMed to apologize, I mentioned that my name WAS on the bag (and there it was on the bag when I got it back) PLUS I labeled my skeins with my name, it would not have been difficult to determine who I was... I've hosted swaps before and she was being lazy... sorry, just ranting) Anyhow- the yarns I did get are very nice, and I can't wait to start working with them. One seems to have either angora or alpaca in it, so I'm going to toss it aside. I don't want alpaca in the blanket, and angora doesn't really fit with the whole "sock" theme. Kevin helped me wind the yarn, and this particular skein gave him fits. Poor thing. Guess he won't be helping again.

Then, earlier this morning I made lotion bars. I got this kit from Brambleberry.com and loved it. It contains enough stuff to make at least 15 lotion bars (about 1 oz each). I made 5- 1 unscented, and 4 with different scents I have. I really like the Energy scent that comes with the kit. (Not completely in love with the Chipotle Caramel I also selected. It smells like a jelly belly- maybe Caramel Corn? Not like actual Caramel, but like scent. Bummer. But I am going to give it a few tries. I need to get more Pineapple Cilantro next order. I love that one so much and use it all the time.) Anyhow- the lotion was super easy to make, and so easy to use. It's a softer lotion than the bar I got from Chagrin Valley- which sometimes doesn't melt easily and you have to press hard. This melts on skin contact and is perfect. It is a little oily feeling compared to commercial lotion, but that's because it IS oil. The skin absorbs it and you don't feel oily after a few minutes. It's so luxorious feeling I've wanted to reapply it so many times today. Which is silly, because it's so moisturizing, there is absolutely no need to reapply. I've got lots of them though, so if you're interested in one, I might be up for a trade... (Remember, they are my first ones, so they aren't perfect)

And then, two more things today. First the super exciting one. I caught a Wollmeise update on Claudia's site for the first time. I have 2 grab bags headed my way; Blacks/Browns and then one that is a total mystery. I just cannot wait.

Lastly, Kevin and I played Killer Bunnies for the first time. Uh- that did not go well. I feel like that even though you CAN play with just two people, it doesn't really work. Lastly, we kept forgetting rules, and killing off bunnies that shouldn't have been killed, etc. So finally, we just gave up.

And now- Spaghetti Frittata is ready! Time for dinner.

I'm not good at the things I'm not good at.

Suzy taught me how to make stitch markers today! It is HARD. The twisting at the end is really really difficult. We went to Michaels and I almost bought beads, but in the end I only got some for knitting onto a cowl. I love my stitch markers. (The one on the own is the one suzy made.)

Here's me holding the first one I made. (Note the short hair.)

The first craft of the day we took on was felted soap. I can't wait to use this. I'm trying to not use plastic bottles anymore, so I'm going to start using bar soap for the first time since I discovered body gel. I'm excited about the wool covering. Mine is the green one- I accidentally put the seam on the top. The felt should get tighter and more even with use.

We also dyed yarn. This is Suzy's first time dyeing, handpainting with Kool-Aid. I dyed some laceweight yarn for Christmas knitting, using a mixture of Jacquard and Wilton's. (AKA the wilton's didn't work and I threw different dye in).

Then we went on an unproductive hunt for DPNs for suzy- Michael's, Walmart, and then the yarn store- which was closed :( It did produce ice cream at Walmart though. And beads for my lace knitting (yet to be decided pattern)- though I still need a smaller crochet hook if I'm not going to thread them)

Progress...

I thought I should show a picture of Daffodil Design before it gets larger than the gap in the needles (these are 24" circs, I'm hoping I can use them for most of the project, but by the end it will be a very very tight squeeze, so I will probably have to buy another set of needles. That will cost a ton of money, because you know I'm gonna end up getting other stuff too...)

Anyhow this is Daffodil Design. I've made a huge step forward in my knitting with this. Each round has the same pattern repeated 6 times, but I wouldn't call it a simple pattern (you know k3, yo, k3, yo sort of thing)- however- I have found that once I do one repeat I am able to do the other 5 without refering to the pattern. I was actually doing well not refering to the pattern with the next repeat, but then it turned out the motif changed and I had to unknit quite a bit, so I am no longer trying to be psychic. However, the ability to memorize a complicated pattern has eluded me until now, and I am very proud of myself.





This is the "yarn" I am using for the project. It is crochet cotton, so I think it might actually be considered thread.






This is yarn I dyed for Marlene socks. I am really excited to knit Marlene, and now I have sport weight yarn so they should go over my heel! This yarn is a semi-solid blue, the first yarn I've done using Jacquard dyes instead of food dye like Wiltons and Kool-Aid. I'm not sure I love it. It took a few trys to get all the white spots out, and the subtle color differences I put in don't seem to show. However, I never know until I knit it up...

I had previously shown you Marlene in the yarn that I am now using for the Mockery socks, which by the way were not ripped out after all. They are my work socks, which means they get 30 minutes of kniting at lunch. They are ready for heel #1 and I am trying to decide between short row and heel flap, guess it will be whichever the wind guides me to tomorrow at lunch, likely a short row, as those take way less time. I am completly loving them, the subtle pattern, the shine of the silk in the yarn, the GORGEOUS accidental color. It's perhaps the best yarn I've ever dyed, and I'm happy about the pattern I chose. Sorry, no pictures of those yet.

Yarn take two.

This is the same yarn I posted the last time. To get rid of the white spots (which I hid in that photo) I dumped it into a bath of red kool aid. So now the yarn isn't pink, but reddish-pink. I'm very happy with it. You can still see some very light spots, but after carefully looking at them, I think it's safe to say they are LIGHT pink.

I reskeined this last night, which means that I took the skein I dyed and made it into a new skein that is a different size. That way the "chunks" of color don't group together, and instead the colors interact with each other. The photo isn't very true to color, it's a very light red, not orangey, but the interaction of the colors is pretty realistic.

I think I reached my goal of doing a semi-solid pretty well.

I'm finished with the gusset decreases of my Sunshine sock. Back to work now... but hopefully a more reasonable day, not 14 hours.

Kettle Dying

I tried to do a semi-solid dye method yesterday. It didn't work the way I wanted. The first pot I didn't get ANY color on the underside at all- just the surface that I could immediatly see. Urgh.

I so I made up another pot and got about 75% coverage. Why are there so many white spots?

So I made up a third pot for immersion- this time there was no kettle dye method at all, I wanted full coverage. Grr- STILL white spots.

So now I'm trying to decide if I should keep it as is and just see how it knits up. I think it's going to be strings of 7-8 stitches though, so probably not that nicely. Maybe I should dunk it in some Kool-Aide to over dye it. Kool-Aid seems to have better coverage than the Wilton's dyes I've used.

I do really like the pink though. Pink is fun, and pink socks are very fun.

Finished the first brown sock... have done the ribing for the next one.